because i still don’t have a film scanner(voel u maar schuldig Caroline! :-p), i can’t really show you new stuff at the moment… so i’m just going to upload some older stuff for now…

starting off with a portrait series i made about people living in Schaarbeek. Schaarbeek is located in Brussels and is home to a large immigrant community. so many different nationalities live together in Schaarbeek; Turkish, Moroccan, African, Bulgarian, Armenian,… needless to say, it’s quite an interesting place to take pictures!

the first photo is a portrait of Rafi. he’s an Armenian guy living in Schaarbeek since 1999. he didn’t speak a word of Dutch, French, English or German(that’s about it for my languages.. my Armenian isn’t all that good :-p). luckily, some of his friends accompanying him spoke a little bit of French, so they translated for me. well they tried.. communication wasn’t all that easy, but we had a good laugh in the end…

eventually, i was allowed to take a few pictures. because we couldn’t understand each other, i just turned his head the way i wanted, had him put the cigarette in his mouth et voila! :-D i printed the original photo on 30×40 fibre-based paper(warmtone), which looks absolutely stunning! too bad i can’t scan large print, so you guys will have to do it with a crappy neg scan… my bad!

the next photo is a portrait of a Turkish lady. i still don’t know her name because we couldn’t understand each other. *yay for language barriers* -_-

while exploring Schaarbeek, i saw her sitting on her doorsteps. i just liked the way she was sitting there, enjoying the good weather, so i wanted to ask if i could take her picture, but she didn’t really understand what my intentions were. it took me a while to explain, but in the end i was allowed to take some pictures. *yay for body language!*

next up is the portrait of Mpungi. he’s such a great guy. i already met him a few times before i made this photo. the first time i met him, i was taking pictures at night in Brussels, he tapped on my shoulder and spoke the magical words: “Jesus loves you!” :’-D i was quite surprised by that one sentence and had quite a conversation with him about why Jesus loved me. some time later, i saw him again in the Brussels North train station. he saw me, walked up to me and said that same sentence again. apparently he didn’t know me anymore… :-p

a few months later, i was making these portraits in Schaarbeek and he just came out of a grocery store. i walked up to him(of course he said that same sentence again.. some kind of trademark i guess) and i asked if i could take his picture. he seemed very honoured that i had asked him. i made him pose against the wall, took some pictures and afterwards he gave me a hug(no shit!) while saying: “peace on earth”. oh great moments that were! :-D

the last photo is a portrait of Attila and his son. he’s a truck driver living in Schaarbeek since 1970. he was just coming home from work(hence why he’s wearing a jacket in his kitchen :-D) and i ran to his car to ask whether i could take some pictures of him inside of his house. luckily he spoke French(not that my French is all that good, but it’s definitely better than my Turkish :-p) and wanted to cooperate immediately. he was a very friendly man, really.

once inside, his son immediately grabbed a camera out of a cabinet and started to show off his little digital camera. ’twas quite funny actually :-D

too bad this print scan is quite fucked though. the dark areas have become big black stains during the scanning process :-( the print looks way better, believe me!

there… the first blog post on my new blog is a fact! i hoped you enjoyed it(even though most of you have probably seen these photos before…).

cheers!

bert